March 2013

 Update on Publication Standard  Surface Management Agency – Mapping  Specifications for Descriptions of Land:  For Use in Land Orders, Executive Orders, Proclamations, Federal Register Documents, and Land Description Data Bases

 Most current Content Standard is version 4, FGDC Cadastral Data Content Standard.  This defines the underlying concepts, definitions, and relationships of cadastral data components.  Most current version of the Publication Format Guidelines is Version 2.  This describes the physical format for the publication and distribution of standardized cadastral data elements to support GIS and automated spatial data business needs.

 Intended to provide the best available data for any single cadastral feature.  Identifies the data steward for the best available data and provides a link to the underlying authoritative or defining sources.  Includes Cadastral Reference theme and Parcel theme.  Cadastral reference is the data that provides the framework for the definition of legal land tenure boundaries.  Parcels provide a spatial representation of the rights and interests in land, but could also be tax parcels, public lands, surface ownership, subsurface ownership, etc.

 BLM Western States  AK, WA, OR, CA, AZ, NV, ID, UT, NM, CO, WY, MT  MT also responsible for ND, SD  WY also responsible for NE  CO also responsible for KS  NM also responsible for OK  The Western States cover 17 of the 30 PLSS States  The baseline of the Public Land Survey System (PLSS) GIS/Spatial mapping in western states is the Geographic Coordinate Data base (GCDB)

 BLM Eastern States  MN, IA, MO, AR, LA, MS, AL, IL, WI, MI, IN, OH, FL  The Eastern States cover 13 of the 30 PLSS States  The baseline of the PLSS GIS/Spatial mapping in eastern states state and locally sourced PLSS data, starting with the best available statewide data to provide a statewide coverage baseline. As resources permit, updated with locally sourced data.

 On federally managed lands, regardless of location, the BLM is responsible for the PLSS and mapping and description of the rights and interests in the land.  Onshore, the BLM administers all mineral lands as well.  A BLM initiative for surface management agency (SMA).

 Naming convention  XX is state abbreviation, #.# is the version number  XX-CadNSDI-V#.#  Version – describes the format and data structure. With the version 1 formats, the.# extension indicated the processing rule form.  The processing rules have evolved and as the Version 2 is deployed the.# extension will not be needed.  Vintage – indicates the date of last update. This is identified in the feature class Metadata at a Glance which provides the data steward and the date of last update.

Metadata at a Glance – Data Steward and Revised Data

 OR/WA and CA – Data set development is done inhouse, a data set is available and is provided for download. Version 2 is in draft and should be available soon.  NV – Version 2 is in review, update is being done inhouse, should be available soon.  AZ, UT, ID, CO, NM, WY, MT, OK – Data updates to reflect new control is in process, older content is in Version 2, but new vintage in Version 2 format will be available soon.  ND/SD – Version 2 draft is in review should be available soon.  NE/KS – Limited resources and limited federal lands

 OH – completed and delivered to State.  IL – completed to section level, no state steward identified.  MI/WI – first pass completed, federal lands being updated, state stewards identified.  MN – Northern half first pass completed, federal lands being updated, state steward identified  MO – state data in hand, federal lands being processed, state steward identified.  MS/LA/AR data sources and state stewards identified, data not processed.  AL/FL – PLSS not started, completed standardized parcel data for wildland fire, FL data steward identified.  IA/IN – PLSS not started, state steward not identified

Eastern and non-PLSS States are not forgotten In these states the Parcels, Municipal Boundaries and Survey Subdivisions provide the Cadastral Reference. 85% of these counties have automated parcels.

SMA Objective The Surface Management Agency (SMA) dataset will depict Federal lands for the entire United States and classify this land by its active Federal surface managing agency

SMA Definition A Federal surface land management agency refers to a Federal agency with administrative jurisdiction over the surface of Federal lands Jurisdiction over the land is defined when the land is either: –Withdrawn by some administrative or legislative action –Acquired or Exchanged by a Federal agency

Withdrawals Four major categories of formal land withdrawals Administrative (i.e. Indian Reservations) Presidential Proclamation (i.e. National Monuments) Congressional (i.e. Wilderness Areas, National Parks) Federal Power Act (FPA) or Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Must accomplish one or more of the following: Transfer total or partial jurisdiction over Federal land between Federal agencies Close Federal land to operation of all or some of the public land laws and/or mineral laws Dedicate Federal land to a specific public purpose

Relationship to Land Status Land Status refers to all the actions affecting the disposition of Federal lands –Withdrawals (Jurisdictional, Segregations) –Authorized Uses (Leases, Permits, ROWs) The SMA dataset only depicts the surface boundaries of each Federal agency’s surface administrative jurisdiction and does not depict all federal land status details

BLM SMA BLM has jurisdiction over a particular category of Federal land known as “public land.” –Any land or interest in land owned by the United States of America and administered by the Secretary of the Interior through the BLM Public lands include public domain lands (lands which have never left Federal ownership) and acquired lands Public lands (NLCS units), public domain lands, and BLM-acquired lands make up the BLM’s official surface administrative boundary

SMA Development Working concurrently on two approaches Leverage existing state-maintained SMA data –Achieve data standardization using Python scripts –State data will be replicated to a National dataset Building SMA from the land records themselves –Land Catalog tool being deployed to the states to assist in record clean-up –Python scripts build features from CADNSDI and legal land descriptions

 For Use in Land Orders, Executive Orders, Proclamations, Federal Register Documents, and Land Description Data Bases  It is more important now than in the past that the person preparing land descriptions be knowledgeable of requirements for the preparation of the various types of land descriptions.  It is necessary to use the proper format, terms and phrases, and intent with qualification to assure the content of the land description is free of ambiguity.  The ambiguous descriptions of the past are the boundary disputes of the future.